‘What name have you chosen?’ I asked.
‘For your Christian name,’ she answered, ‘I have chosen Agnes. It is a pretty name.’
‘It is Alice’s favourite name,’ said Mrs. Lee.
I repeated the word Agnes, but no name, not the strangest that was to have been suggested, could have been more barren to my imagination.
‘If Sir Frederick Thompson is to be believed,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘you undoubtedly belong to the Calthorpe family, whoever they may be, for I am sorry to say I never before heard of them.’
‘Does he continue to say that I am a Calthorpe?’ said I.
‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘he offers to wager any sum of money that you will prove to be a Calthorpe.’
‘I am sure he is mistaken,’ said Miss Lee. ‘How would it be possible for him to recognise a likeness in you when your face was almost concealed by a bandage? And besides, is it not certain that the terrible sufferings you have undergone have greatly changed the character of your face? You may resemble the Calthorpe family now, but you could not have resembled them before your sufferings altered you, and therefore Sir Frederick Thompson must be mistaken.’
‘That is cleverly reasoned, my love,’ said her mother, looking at her fondly and wistfully; ‘nobody appears to have taken that view. Everybody except Mrs. Webber seems inclined to think Sir Frederick right. She, good soul, will not allow him to be right because she has a theory of her own.’
‘Perhaps now,’ said Miss Lee, ‘that your face is more concealed by your veil than it was by your bandage Sir Frederick will discover a likeness in you to somebody else.’